Battlestar Wiki:Think Tank/Errors Policy

This is the overview. Basically, a summary of what the idea is about. You can get into the details later on.

DRAFT - not even close to finished, but I welcome discussion Eghm 01:55, 15 September 2006 (CDT)

Errors Policy

A policy proposal; started by Eghm, in reaction to the various levels of suspending disbelief discussed on continuity errors talk. The goal of this policy is to provide guidelines of what constitutes continuity errors vs Production errors or Dangling plot lines in Battlestar Galactica while assuming good faith on the part of the writers, without resorting to fanwanking. This policy would be linked to from the various (small number of) error pages.

Continuity Errors requires some understanding of the continuity goals of the show, RDM wrote the BSG Bible and has mentioned them in podcasts. There are also some wiki pages: Naturalistic science fiction, Life Forms of the Twelve Colonies.

When deriving continuity errors based on character dialogue there are two extremes (with plenty of gray area between) of believing that characters have perfect knowledge and never lie or characters do not have perfect knowledge and are capable of lieing adding to this is the personality of the character. Baltar's Cylon Detector is a good example of where an individual audience members stance can effect how they interpret possible continuity errors. When Baltar tests Boomer, the test only takes a few minutes however in Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down it is stated that one test takes 11 hours. Some people see this as an obvious continuity (writer) error. Other possible explanations have been offered such as; given Baltar's reaction to Boomers positive test, he realizes it may be a bad idea to have a possible Cylon present when the results come in. Or it could be that 11 hours is the maximum amount of time the test takes and he got "lucky" with Boomer's test, or he could be "sandbagging" so as to have time to pursue other things (such as woman, the vice presidency, etc.) or given his Cylon collaboration he could be stalling.

Microsoft mouse vs Hummer bits to go here...

Continuity sub categories:

Dialogue Errors - Continuity errors specific to things said which do not belong to the BSG universe (Jesus, world famous, etc.)

VFX Gaffes - Continuity errors specific to special effects.

Prop and Equipmnent Errors - Continuity errors specific to props and set.

Retcons - "adding of new information to "historical" material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work" - BSG Retcons

Plot holes - Continuity error where the plot has progressed without the audiance, beyond some certain level of suspended belief, not to be confused with dangling plot lines.

Production errors - things which involve the production of the show such as the reflection of crane raising the Raptor in the Miniseries after Helo shoots the civilian off the wing on Caprica, seeing off set, seeing cast, seeing boom mics, etc.

Dangling plot lines - Plot lines that have been started, but not continued.

Acknowledged Mistakes and fixes- The show has acknowledged a mistake and fixed it.